Our windows gave on a market-square with arcades and splendid granite-pillars; in the square was a municipal fountain in the form of a gigantic bronze boar from whose throat the water flowed (it is a classic masterpiece of rare beauty). Well, now reflect that all those arcades and the masses of stone by which the whole square is surrounded, drank in and accumulated all the heat of the sun, and got as scorching as a stove-pipe in a vapour-bath — and that was the atmosphere we had to live in.
The real heat, that is, the real hell-heat, we had to groan under for six weeks (earlier, it was just in a sort of way endurable); it was nearly always 34 and 35 degrees Reaumur in the shade.
You must know that the air, despite this heat and drought (it never once rained), was wonderfully light; the green in the gardens (of which there are astonishingly few in Florence; one sees hardly anything but stones) — the green neither withered nor faded, but seemed brighter and fresher every day; the flowers and lemon-trees had apparently only waited for the heat; but what astonished me most — me, who was imprisoned in Florence by untoward circumstance — was that the itinerant foreigners (who are nearly all very rich) mostly remained in Florence; new ones even arrived every day.
Usually the tourists of all Europe throng, at the beginning of the hot weather, to the German spas. When I saw in the streets well-dressed Englishwomen and even Frenchwomen, I could not conceive why these people, who had money to get away with, could voluntarily stay in such a hell. I was sorriest of all for poor Anya. The poor thing was then in her seventh or eighth month, and so suffered dreadfully from the heat. Moreover, the population of Florence spends the whole night on its feet, and there’s a terrible deal of singing. Of course we had our windows open at night; then about five o’clock in the morning, the people began to racket in the market, and the donkeys to bray, so that we never could close an eye.
The distance from Florence to Prague (by Venice and then by boat to Trieste; there’s no other way) is more than a thousand versts; I was therefore very anxious about Anya; but the renowned Dr. Sapetti of Florence examined her and said that she could undertake the journey without any risk. He was right too, and the journey went off well. On the way we stopped two days in Venice; when Anya saw the Piazza of St. Mark’s and the palaces, she almost screamed with delight. In St. Mark’s (the church is a wonderful, incomparable building!) she lost her carved fan which I had bought her in Switzerland, and which was particularly dear to her; she has so few trinkets, you see.
My God, how she did cry over it! We liked Vienna very much too; Vienna is decidedly more beautiful than Paris. In Prague we spent three days looking for a place of abode, but found none. One can, in fact, only get unfurnished rooms there, as in Petersburg or Moscow; then one has to get one’s own furniture, and a servant-maid, and set up house, and so forth. Nothing else is to be had. Our means did not permit of it, and therefore we left Prague.
Now we have been three months in Dresden; Anya’s confinement may happen at any moment. For the present we are not doing so badly; but I am badly “sold,” for it seems now that the hot, dry air in Florence was extraordinarily beneficial to my health, and even more so to my nerves (nor had Anya anything to complain of, rather the contrary). It was precisely on the hottest days that the epilepsy was least perceptible, and my attacks in Florence were much slighter than anywhere else.
But here I’m always ill (perhaps it may be only the effect of the journey). I don’t know if I’ve caught cold, or if the feverish attacks come from the nerves. These last three weeks I have had two; both very vicious ones. Yet the weather is glorious. I ascribe it all to the fact of coming suddenly from the Italian to the German climate. I have fever at the actual moment, and think that in this climate I shall write feverishly — that is, incoherently.
Now I have given you a lot of information about myself. Of course it is only the hundredth part; besides illness, many things oppress me, of which I can give no idea at all. Here is an example: I must absolutely deliver the beginning of my novel in time for the January number of the Roussky Viestnik (to be sure I am bound to admit that they do not press me in any way; they behave remarkably well to me and never refuse advances, though I already owe them a very great deal; but I am tormented by pangs of conscience, and so feel just the same as if they did press me).
Moreover, I took an advance of 300 roubles from the Sarya early in the year, and that with a promise to send them this very year a story of at least three sheets. At the present moment I have not begun either the one or the other of these tasks; at Florence I could not work on account of the heat. When I undertook the obligation, I reckoned on going from Florence to Germany early in the new year, and there setting to work at once.
But what can I do when people make me wait three months for money, and thus remove from me the possibility of doing anything at all? Anya will, in about ten days, present me with a child, probably a boy, and this will further delay my endeavours. She will certainly have to keep her bed for three weeks, and so will not be able either to do shorthand or to copy for me. Of my own health, I need not speak. And then the work itself! Must I, to carry out my commissions punctually, tumble over my own feet, as it were, and so spoil all?
I am now utterly possessed by one idea; yet I dare not take any steps to carry it out, for I am not sufficiently prepared to do so — I still have much to ponder, and I must collect material. Thus I have to force myself to write, meanwhile, some new stories. And to me that is terrible. What lies before me, and how I shall arrange my affairs, is to me an enigma!…
Till the next time, my dear friend. Write me a great deal about yourself. And above all as many facts as possible.
I embrace you.
Your ever devoted
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY.
LI. To Apollon Nikolayevitch Maikov
DRESDEN,
October 16 [28], 1869.
[The greater part of the letter deals with a business misunderstanding with the staff of the Sarya.]
What am I to do now? When shall I get my money now? Why does he [Kachpirev, the editor of the Sarya] wait for my telegram, and request me to return to him the letter of exchange (“then I shall send you the money in the course of post,” he said) instead of sending me now, directly, the second instalment of seventy-five roubles, which was due ten days ago? Does he think that the letter in which I described my destitute condition was a piece of fine writing and nothing more? How can I work, when I am hungry, and had to pawn my very pantaloons to get the two thalers for the telegram?
The devil take me and my hunger! But she, my wife, who now is suckling her infant, she had to go herself to the pawnshop and pledge her last warm woollen garment! And it has been snowing here for the last two days (I am not lying: look at the newspapers!) How easily may she catch cold! Isn’t he capable of understanding, then, that I am ashamed of telling him all these things? And it’s nothing like the whole of them either; there are other things of which I’m ashamed: we haven’t yet paid either the midwife or the landlady; and all these vexations must fall upon her precisely in the first month after her accouchement! Doesn’t he see that it’s not only me, but my wife, whom he insults, by taking my letter so frivolously, for I told him of my wife’s great need. Indeed he has grossly insulted me!
Perhaps he may say: “Confound him and his poverty! He must plead, and not demand, for I am not bound to pay him his fee in advance.” Can’t he understand that by his favourable answer to my first letter he did bind me! Why did I turn to him with my request for 200 roubles, and not to Katkov? Only and solely because I believed that I should get the money sooner from him than from Katkov (whom I did not wish to trouble); if I had written to Katkov then, the money would have been in my hands at least a week ago! But I did not. Why? Because he [Kachpirev] had bound me by his answer. Consequently he has no right to say that he confounds me and my poverty, and that
